Google doodle celebrates Tareque Masud’s 62nd birthday

Search engine giant Google has created a new Doodle on its homepage, celebrating the 62nd birth anniversary of renowned Bangladeshi filmmaker Tareque Masud.

In its doodle, the search engine giant shows an image of a hand holding a 'clay bird', based on the filmmaker's renowned film 'The Clay Bird'.

Tareque Masud was born in Nurpur Village of Faridpur District in Bangladesh on December 6 in 1956.

Doodles are a special, temporary alteration of the company's logo, on Google's homepage, that honour notable personalities.

"The first Bangladeshi director to participate in the Oscars or to be honoured at Cannes, Tareque Masud was a driving force within his country's independent film movement," Google wrote in its Doodle.

Giving special thanks to Google, the film maker's wife Catherine Masud said, "It is a great honour to have Tareque Masud's legacy recognised by Google. Tareque was a visionary and a pioneer of Bangladeshi cinema, an inspiring figure for young people in his own country and beyond. Although he made films for the people of Bangladesh, his work also spoke to the world through universal themes of tolerance, compassion, and justice."

Tareque started his career with his first film Adam Surat (1991) (The Inner Strength), a documentary on the legendary Bangladeshi painter S M Sultan, in 1982. His 1995 feature length documentary on the '71 Liberation War, Muktir Gaan (1995) (Song of Freedom) brought record audiences and became a cult classic. He also made many other films on the war, including Muktir Kotha (1999) (Words of Freedom), Narir Kotha (Women and War) (2000) and Naroshundor (The Barbershop) (2009).

In 2002, he completed his feature film The Clay Bird (2002) (The Clay Bird), which was based on his childhood experience in the Madrassa. The film won the Critics' Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) at the Cannes Film Festival (2002), was the first Bangladeshi film to compete in the Oscars, and was released in many countries around the world.

On 13 August 2011, Tareque and cinematographer Mishuk Munier along with three others were killed in a road accident on Dhaka-Aricha highway in Ghior Upazila of Manikganj while returning to Dhaka from Manikganj after visiting a shooting location, UNB reported.

The accident happened when a microbus carrying the two celebrities collided with a bus on the highway.

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